Pick up a Bible. Any Bible will do. Now hold it up before your eyes. You are holding in your hand a miracle Book! Three miracles distinguish it from all the books of the world and defend it against ordinariness.
There is, first, the miracle of INSPIRATION: that work of the Spirit of God in the hearts and minds of the Scripture writers which made their writings a record of divine revelation. That book is God-breathed! From its inception it was divine. In it is the mind of God, the way of salvation, and the revealed plan of God for man for time and eternity. It is divine in its initiation.
There is, second, the miracle of PRESERVATION: that work of the Spirit of God upon the hearts, minds, and hands of the Scripture translators, as well as upon the Scripture text itself, which guaranteed the perpetuation and protection of the original message of the Bible. Through the perils of translation and retranslation, changing times and cultures, the same Holy Spirit who breathed the original message to the first writers has been present to protect the text against deceit and error. So miraculously did the Holy Spirit work that the Bible has retained its impact and intent through hundreds of perilous years of translation. God did not leave the care of his Word to the hands of men alone. It is divine in its continuation.
There is, finally, the miracle of ILLUMINATION: that work of the Spirit of God upon the heart, mind, and life of the preacher, the teacher, and the student of the Word which discloses the inner meaning of the message of the Bible. No little miracle this! The same Holy Spirit which breathed the Word into the hearts of the writers and presided over its perpetuation now moves upon the preacher, teacher, and student to reveal its life-changing truths. It is divine in its continuation.
Thus, you have physical, tangible, visible proof of the existence of miracles. You are holding a miracle in your hand! The Bible is miraculous in its initiation, in its continuation, and in its illumination. The Holy Spirit still guards his Word! If you doubt its miraculous nature, I challenge you to give the Holy Spirit an opportunity to speak to your heart through its contents as you read it. God¡¯s eternal disposition regarding his Word is revealed in Jeremiah 1:12: ¡°I will hasten my word to perform it!¡±
In this Book, the mind and plan of God are disclosed. It contains the plan of life for all men and all seasons and is eternal, unchanging, and complete . . . from eternity to eternity.
The systems of man are collapsing and passing into antiquity. This should be no surprise to us. We have read the divine utterance which says, ¡°And the world is passing away with its desires; but he that does the will of God abides forever¡± (1 John 2:17).
The Bible presents the rules of eternal life. Its principles dare to cut clean across the lines of modern reason, defy the best of our system¡¯s experts, and extol values long since claimed obsolete by this world¡¯s intelligentsia. The Bible claims things to be precious that the world abhors and abhors things which this world holds precious.
And the remarkable thing about all this is that the world¡¯s claims make so much sense to the reasoning mind and the Bible seems to make so little. In the thinking of the world, the Bible seems preposterous and absurd . . . its claims far-out! I cannot argue this. But with as much sense as the deductions of the world seem to be making, they are not working! The world is falling apart, and its systems are falling! Man is scrambling to patch up his plans but they are passing away, despite it all. They simply are not working.
But I can tell you this . . . I affirm that the claims of the Bible are working! In the lives of men and women who dare to demonstrate their faith in the trustworthiness of the Word of God, heaven is happening! It is working! Its claims, as absurd as they sound, are standing. So I give you this Book, the Bible . . . laughed at, challenged, doubted, scoffed at, opposed, and refused . . . but whose principles stand!
Now we come to the reason for this volume. The Bible is a completely reliable Book which presents the history of man from a divine perspective and proposes a management of man¡¯s affairs under a plan of divine economy.
Thus, there is a plan of economy which is eternal. It is a plan for all men and all seasons, and it involves all the commodities of life. That plan of economy is the will of God. G. Campbell Morgan said, ¡°The one and only life that sets a man free from the forces that blight and destroy is the WILL OF GOD. Show me a man who lives for one day wholly, utterly, in word and thought and deed in the will of God, and I will show you a man who is antedating heaven, and who for that day reaches the plane of life which is at once broadest, freest, and gladdest.¡±
The Word of God is given us that we might know the truth . . . not that we might have another theory with which to compare already existing ideas. The truth that the Bible reveals is the will of God.
The plan of economy presented in the Bible is stable and workable. It will work in good times and bad among people of all classes and races, young and old. It will still be in effect when the stars begin to fall, and a hundred million years from this very moment will still be standing. Such a plan deserves the consideration of every reasoning person today.
In these days when every magazine, newspaper, and television newscast is headlining the present economic disaster around the world and heralding the possibility of the collapse of the whole economic system, surely it is time to view the plan of economy that was in force when civilization saw its first sunrise and will be in force after the last sunset!
There is a plan of economy presented in the Bible which is not affected by recession, depression, spiraling inflation and dollar devaluation. It is God¡¯s plan! It involves the management of all the affairs of man in this world and all the commodities of life. This is not a volume about money alone, because economy involves much more than money. It includes all the products with which man deals during his life—and after. A plan of economy that does not include the view of eternity is indeed incomplete! This plan takes into account time and eternity. It reckons with all earth¡¯s treasures, resources, and capacities and man¡¯s role in relating himself to them. It includes the eternal purpose in the mind of God as he created all that is.
Man¡¯s economic systems are collapsing because he has been selfish and shortsighted and has failed to include in his economic principles those matters vital to its permanency. He has not reckoned with his responsibilities to the God who made all things, as well as himself, nor has he reckoned with his relationship with the whole human family. He has trafficked to his immediate advantage with divinely-given privileges, and the result has been the destruction of resources necessary to the whole human family.
The price for man¡¯s crimes is high. The whole balance of economy is out of order. There is too much here and not enough there. Greed reigns, and war rages. The confusion and consternation among nations are but a magnification of what is going on in the hearts of men. The ¡°evil day¡± has always come when the deceit of man¡¯s systems has finally cornered him . . . when his violations of divine rules of economy have finally apprehended him. That day is near again! When it came the nation fell, the enemy took over, the famine came, the siege was executed . . . and whatever else happened that needed to happen to remind people that God was still in charge and demanded attention.
Long-standing rules on which we have based our world economy have at long last proved invalid. Shortages in all commodities are threatening. For the first time man can remember, famine is conceivable in every part of the world.
Surely it is high time to ask, ¡°Does the God of heaven have anything to say to this turbulent, torn-up twentieth century?¡± Of course he does! He has always had something to say, and he has always been saying it for those who listen. He does have a plan for your life! It is all-inclusive of every relationship, commodity, capacity now and later. It embraces what you are and all you will ever be. It includes your time, your concern, your love, your emotional and mental capacities, and your spiritual gifts.
It is God¡¯s miraculous plan of economy. Miraculous? Certainly! Because it is God¡¯s plan and because its workings cannot be explained by the rules of earth. The prayer of the author is that the reader will find it impossible to respond with a casual shrug of the shoulders to the message of this volume. I pray that it will result in whatever changes in the reader¡¯s life-style are necessary to adjust him into God¡¯s plan of economy. I pray that the message of this book will endanger and imperil any life-style which disregards the will of God as man¡¯s supreme goal and cause an encounter which will result in your getting in on God¡¯s way of doing things!
May the principles herein be as life-changing for you as they are proving to be for me!